Brief History of a Family

It doesn't seem easy to break the structure of a perfect family in contemporary China, but if a new member arrives unexpectedly, the ties that bind them together can become fragile. When Tu Wei befriends Shuo and takes him in, Shuo gradually begins to spend more time with them, taking advantage of the guilt Wei's parents feel about his class status and playing on their kindness to covertly plot a plan for his social advancement. From the Official Section of the Sundance Film Festival comes Jianjie Lin's debut feature, echoing Parasites (2019) and Saltburn (2023), though its enigmatic mise-en-scène takes us down enigmatic paths, perversely analysing economic and social expectation in China and turning the apparent warmth of home into a silent, calculating battleground.